The infrastructure that provides SAR capability has to be there whether it is involved in SAR or not. A coast guard cutter (for example) costs pretty much the same if it is actively involved in SAR as if it is just cruising along, having a quiet old day. So when you hear on the TV "that it cost $10 million to rescue a couple from their stricken yacht", what you don't get to hear was that it would have cost $9.6 million to have done nothing at all, because you don't suddenly just magic the infrastructure into being whenever there is a mayday or EPIRB activation.

Having said that, I do agree with the basic sentiment of the original post. It does appear that people are, in some cases, assuming that an EPIRB and a Sat-phone are an acceptable substitute for seamanship, knowledge experience and a well-found vessel

The vast majority of the advice is good, is cautious, and encourages people to venture out only after truly preparing. However, there is also a cowboy mentality where I've seen comments many times advising against waiting, saying do it now to people who are ill prepared. They also read stories of others just as poorly prepared when they ventured out. They don't read stories written by those who failed and even died in the process. They are told of the small single handed boats that circumnavigated. They are encouraged to cross oceans.

It's my personal opinion the SAR doesn't make them more likely to venture out. Just they find themselves filled with a quest for adventure without fully considering all they need to. Again, the vast majority encourage good habits, safe boating and sailing and proper training. But sometimes those aren't the ones heard by the person who later requires rescue. They hear "it's possible" or "you can" and don't hear "I wouldn't advise."

- People are desensitized to risk. EMS shows up in 5 minutes. Access to instant communications establishes a false sense of security
- People want instant gratification - No need to put in the hard miles to get ready - The boat that will take care of me, not the other way around.
- People believe what they want to believe. Few people come here with intention to be talked out of their dream
- The internet is always right and truthful - just make sure you read the parts that agree with you and ignore the parts that don't.

This forum -
Post count is not an indicator of "rightness" - I am wrong a hell of a lot of times, often corrected by those with a lower post count.

But post count indicates someone who has been here a while and been through the debates enough to either be so thick skinned as to never change their own paradigm, or probably has been here long enough they have vestment in their reputation and don't knowingly lead people astray.

When a guy with 50 posts says, "Go for it" and 10 guys with 9,000 posts say, "slow down an prepare" - I am pretty much going to side with the 10 guys.

But time and time again, we see the OP validating his plan by listening to the 50 post guy.

And if you have 30 years of off-shore experience but only 50 posts - this is not aimed at you. You are smart enough to realize that your reputation will build as your track record of posting goes up.

This forum -
Post count is not an indicator of "rightness" - I am wrong a hell of a lot of times, often corrected by those with a lower post count.

But post count indicates someone who has been here a while and been through the debates enough to either be so thick skinned as to never change their own paradigm, or probably has been here long enough they have vestment in their reputation and don't knowingly lead people astray.

Sorry but post count is the number of times you posted. PERIOD, there is no reliable relationship between post count and competency.

There are some folks here (not me) with low post counts who are rather competent. Many of those with lower counts have more miles and less time "on the hook". There are also some high post count members who have told folks to "get out there" regardless of the posters clear incompetence. I know because I stopped arguing with them!

Then again anyone who makes decisions that rely significantly on an Internet forum are validating Darwin's theories.

__________________
"Whenever...it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea..." Ismael

I think the rapid rise in 406 maritime hits is because of PLBs...you need to run the overall SAR stats against that possibility. Their affordability makes it easier to call for help than many of the old ways...same number in trouble...just now they are using PLBs.

I have the background to have a clue.

Overall SAR is down in the US if you factor out non-emergency stuff Assistance towers usually handle.

Couple that with the fact that maritime SAR is usually long range, off-shore and costly one wonders when governments are going to get together and say, "Look the costs of picking up recreational boaters is increasing and alarming." Something must be done.

I doubt that this is a correct statement, IMO. Dave (gbn) states in his experience, much greater than mine in SAR, that most rescues are inshore. I do believe this is true. I will opine that the ones offshore cost more individually but are far fewer in number. Don't forget that many offshore SAR events are for commercialfishing vessels who spend a lot of time in weather that most recreational boaters try to avoid. I still believe however that many new boaters venture offshore unprepared themselves and in unprepared boats.

I doubt that this is a correct statement, IMO. Dave (gbn) states in his experience, much greater than mine in SAR, that most rescues are inshore. I do believe this is true. I will opine that the ones offshore cost more individually but are far fewer in number. Don't forget that many offshore SAR events are for commercialfishing vessels who spend a lot of time in weather that most recreational boaters try to avoid. I still believe however that many new boaters venture offshore unprepared themselves and in unprepared boats.

Correct, the fact is , despite an occasional high drama news like RH or Cheeki raki, most deep sea rescues are hidden costs borne by shipping as few nations have much beyond 400 mile reach and many dont even have that , often deploying military assets that are in effect cost neutral.

The big increase in SAR ops is inshore, and increasingly for " trvial" non life threatening reasons. This coupled with the lower cost of PLBs and Gpirbs etc has led to more people " pushing the red button " , what those graphs don't show is the huge increase in SAR ops as a result of mobile phone calks, or even email and text alerts being sent to MRCC s , this is a key area of concern to governments.

The issue isn't the few who foolhardy set off into the horizon, yes we tend to hear about these, especially on a sailing forum. It's the idiots in boats that go out 10 miles, get lost, run out of fuel and hit the PLB that's causing issues

And the number of DSC "false alarms" has increased exponentially. To me that is a worrisome problem. Here in the US the number of DSC alerts from VHF radios with no MMSI or "made up" MMSI numbers is increasing. I think the US Coast Guard says something like 90+% of all VHF DSC distress calls are false or not traceable.

Education might help but I am not optimistic about it. Educating the genius that decided not to get an MMSI # (they are free) and not connect GPS but still punches the alarm button expecting someone to magically find them seems pretty hopeless.

Snore, I agree with you that using post count as anything other than a surplus of idle time is not valid. I know of some very bad advice being given today (re Schengen) by some high post count members. It's irrelevant.

__________________The next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing ...

I don't exactly know how to put this, but these are not SAR statistics they are satellite assisted SAR statistics. How many people in the recreational marine world owned epirbs of either type in 1990? I would venture almost none. These are marketing statistics designed to show how many people were saved by buying an epirb or plb. My guess would be the number of satellite assisted recues is more a function of the number of epirb/plbs sold rather than the total number of rescues. These stats say nothing about the total number of rescues compared to the number of boaters. Like most statistics taken out of context these numbers are meaningless in determining the total number of rescues or whether the rate of rescues has gone up. Can we please at least argue about something real? I see a lot of chicken little threads on this forum and this is one of them.